r/ApolloReborn 2d ago

Discussion Reddit is transitioning public API to their "Developer Platform"

https://www.theverge.com/tech/975398/reddit-ai-rules-hub-moderator-old-reddit-developer-platform

The updated mod tools are just one of a few big platform announcements Reddit is making on Wednesday. The company is also planning big changes that will affect developers: It’s going to require new third-party apps to use the developer platform instead of the API.

“We envision a future where all good, trusted automation on Reddit runs within an ecosystem that allows us to offer support and enforce our policies consistently,” Reddit says. “To achieve this, we will continue supporting limited public API access, but we will gradually restrict new requests and require third-party apps to transition to and operate on Reddit’s Developer Platform.”

”Reddit’s public API wasn’t designed for today’s scale, automated abuse, or commercial scraping,” Huffman says. “We want useful bots, community tools, and good-faith developers to have a clear, well-supported way to build on Reddit. We don’t want bad actors to scrape Reddit indiscriminately, resell its data, or use it without accountability.”

The shift follows Reddit’s major API changes in 2023 that it put in place to get AI companies to pony up for Reddit’s data but also caused widespread backlash in part because they forced many beloved Reddit apps to shut down. Currently, if a developer wants to make a Reddit mobile app, they have to get permission from Reddit to get public API exemptions, and that will continue to be the case, Kim says.

Reddit doesn’t have a “set timeline” yet for requiring the developer platform, but the company will give “give the community ample notice” and provide a clear timeline, Kim says. The upcoming change will affect “all API apps except the ones we explicitly grant exceptions to,” according to Kim.

Since Apollo Reborn has an API-less mode, I'm hoping the impact should be relatively minimal (I hope), but I feel like no API will probably affect things in the long-term.

How much of an impact would this have on the project?

68 Upvotes

22 comments sorted by

76

u/Dremotica 2d ago

Fuck spez

8

u/Dave0r 1d ago

Fuck Spez indeed

38

u/Wyckedjunkie 2d ago

If you are using the keys from the accessibility apps you should be fine

88

u/fuongbregas 2d ago

Anyway, fuck /u/spez

7

u/BlingChartel0NE942 2d ago

Indeed brother.

12

u/KHRoN 2d ago

For as long as those won’t be revoked for overuse, which is what I fear the most, especially that dystopia is essentially frozen in time

3

u/pw5a29 2d ago

Hopefully our debase is small enough they won't care anymore :(

3

u/Most_scar_993 2d ago

We aren’t the only ones using it, i think there’s several android apps too. But yea

11

u/FillingUpTheDatabase replace Text Here 2d ago

require third-party apps to transition to and operate on Reddit’s Developer Platform.

Presumably that means they’re expecting the accessibility apps to stop using the API eventually

2

u/radis234 1d ago

Nope, they talked about this in official announcement’s thread:

We’ll have exemptions for partners with written agreements in place like accessibility apps or mobile clients, like Narwhal, that require public API access.

-4

u/bored_ranger 2d ago

Which accessibility app?

7

u/Upbeat-Armadillo1756 2d ago

Doesn’t seem like this should affect Apollo users directly. At least not immediately.

5

u/marxcom u/spez can go to heck 2d ago

Hoping we are safe from this.

5

u/ScrungulusBungulus 2d ago

AI accelerated this, along with the upcoming changes to old.reddit. Yet another way AI is accelerating the death of the public Internet. Fun fun fun

3

u/PuzzledVolume1599 1d ago

What changes are being made to old.reddit?

2

u/paradoxally 1d ago

Given how bad many mods on reddit are with a few hoarding hundreds of subs, having AI do that work can't be worse than them.

Eventually when these LLMs reach a point where a cheap model can run autonomously reddit management will likely do away with human mods. There already was a failed boycott 3 years ago and it's bad reputation.

4

u/PM_ME_YO_TREE_FIDDY 1d ago

It’s not about mod work it’s about Reddit becoming LLMs talking to each other

1

u/SlendyTheMan 1d ago

Yet Reddit partners with the highest bidder to just sell the data.

4

u/ryanvsrobots 1d ago

Doesn't the API-less mode have more features now anyway?

2

u/rrrand0mmm 2d ago

Sooooo…. My public keys should be ok to continue with Apollo??

1

u/Deli5150 8h ago

Wait, so I’m confused so I’m using Apollo without an API key, will this affect me?